


How's It Going To Be (When You Don't Know Me Anymore)

by desertions



Category: The Originals (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desertions/pseuds/desertions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It is a few decades before Rebekah sees her brother again</i> Spoilers for 1x16 of the Originals</p>
            </blockquote>





	How's It Going To Be (When You Don't Know Me Anymore)

It is a few decades before Rebekah sees her brother again. She hears from Elijah occasionally -- he sends her pictures of Hayley and the child but both of them have passed away. He tells her of how Nik took it badly -- outliving his own child. It doesn't surprise her. But in all that time she doesn't hear from Niklaus -- not even once. She's truly free -- and most of the time she manages to convince herself this is still what she wants, a life without him. Without Elijah. 

She makes a life for herself in London -- she's always enjoyed Europe far more than America. She has a few flings, a few loves, and a few disappointments, but things always end on her own terms. She has friends here, her own community. People call her the Queen of the West End. She is happy -- this is what she tells herself. She tries to ignore the hole in her heart -- when it thunders outside she tries not to think about how he would sneak in her bed and comfort her. She is not a little girl anymore, after all.

And this is what she wanted, wasn't it?

Every year she has an annual Masquerade ball with different themes. She's chosen to dress up as Christine Daae from _The Phantom of the Opera_ (to this day she still prefers the novel to the musical but she's always been a purist). She dances with several different men before her shoulder is tapped and she turns around. Her heart stops in her chest -- it's been so long since she last saw him and yet she knows it's him. The half mask across his face doesn't hide anything (it doesn't surprise her that his costume is her counter point -- he always did know her better than anyone else).

She wordlessly takes his hand, letting him lead her onto the dance floor. Seconds turn into minutes and neither one of them say anything. Compared to how long they were together their time apart is like nothing and yet it feels like it's been forever.

"How did you find me," Her voice is quiet as they settle into a waltz -- like they've done countless times before. Like she thought they might not ever do again.

"I was visiting Paris and I heard whispers of the Vampire Queen of London." His words are soft, almost proud in a sort of way. 

"That could be anyone," She counters, bringing her chin up defiantly to meet his eyes.

"No. It couldn't." There's a pang at his words because once she would have loved to get such praise, such validation from him -- but now? She's not so sure. 

"You have New Orleans, don't I deserve my own place?" He had made it clear, she could never come home. So she's had to make one for herself.

"I gave New Orleans back to Marcel -- it's his city, let him have it." His words are curt and dismissive, and she imagines there's a story there. Perhaps, once his child died he couldn't stay there anymore. She doesn't ask. Doesn't want the details about the niece she never got to meet.

His hand moves down to her waist, pulling her in a little closer now. Unintentionally Rebekah feels her body tense, just a little. "Why are you here?"

He is quiet for a moment or two. "I thought for sure after you had a few years on your own you would come back -- you always came back before."

Her face contorts in anger, and her next words come out more like a hiss. "You were the one who told me not to -- who made it clear what the boundaries were. Not me. If you wanted to see me -- Elijah talks to me, you could have asked him. Or were you waiting for me to come begging for big brother's forgiveness, for a place by your side again? Did you really think that was going to happen?"

There's another moment of silence. There didn't used to be so much of that between them -- silence. Restraint. "Honestly, I think I did."

She begins to pull away from him but he tightens his hold on her. "Tell me one thing, Rebekah. Have you been happy? Is life without me everything you dreamed it would be?"

She wants to say yes. She wants to laugh in his face and tell him that these few centuries without him were better than all of the centuries spent with him. She wants to tell him about the men she's loved, the friend's made. The community she's built -- the loyalty she's garnished -- something he has never been able to do himself. 

"Sometimes." Is what she says instead. It's closer to the truth. She does not tell him of how lonely she's been, like the other half of her is missing. 

"It's not so easy, is it, cutting your family out," His words are cruel, and she wonders if that's why he came here in the first place. To hurt her. "But we don't know how to be happy together either. Tell me, Rebekah, what do you want now?"

She could make it simple. She could tell him she wants him to stay. That she wants to be a family. That she cries herself to sleep sometimes missing him and Elijah (but especially him). But once again she keeps what she really wants to herself, she has learned to be more careful than she used to be with her words.

"The same things I have always wanted." It's what she said last time. There's a flash of something in his eyes at it, but she can watch him push it away.

"I hope for your sake, you find it, then. It'd be a shame if this was all for nothing, wouldn't it?"

And it's not nothing. Her life, what she wants, what he has denied her in her exile -- it's not nothing. 

She leans in, brushing a kiss against his cheek but there is nothing kind about the action. "Be happy, brother. Your endless mercy is not forgotten."

And with that she pulls away, exiting the hall rather quickly. She no longer feels like dancing, somehow.

\--

The next morning she wakes up in her bed and on her night stand is the little wooden doll he had carved for her when they were children. She had no idea he still had it. 

Maybe in a few more decades she'd track him down and return it to him.

Maybe.


End file.
